Smartphone OS: A 22-Year History
Join us on the following pages as we explore some of the most influential smartphone companies and their operating systems. You'll learn just how far we've come since the first smartphone was released a mere 22 years ago.
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It's difficult to remember life without the smartphone. Younger generations often ask their elders: How did we stay in touch with friends and business colleagues/clients without email and social networks? Or: How did we ever know where we were going without Google Maps and GPS? And, my favorite: What did we do when we were sitting around, waiting for the airplane/bus/meeting/etc.?
Surprisingly enough, we did manage to get by without smartphones. Even more surprising is just how quickly the smartphone has established itself in our daily lives. One way to see just how far we've come is to look at the history of the smartphone OS itself. It's a pretty interesting journey full of ups and downs to finally arrive at where we are today. And where will the smartphone OS go from here? It's really anyone's guess.
Join us on the following pages as we explore some of the most influential smartphone companies and their operating systems. You'll learn just how far we've come since the first smartphone was released a mere 22 years ago. If you're like me, it will bring back fond memories of smartphones past. And remind you of all the smartphone operating systems you loved (or hated). It's also a good reminder of how competitive the smartphone industry was, and remains. Companies such as Palm and Nokia, which were once considered to be titans of the emerging smartphone industry, essentially crashed and burned because of which smartphone OS they chose to support.
While you enjoy this history lesson of the smartphone OS, please think about your favorite (or most hated) smartphone OS. Also, consider the current state of the smartphone OS, and what you'd like to see from your smartphone in the future. Are current trends dictating that our phones will soon be attached to our wrists in watch form? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Microsoft's first mobile OS went through a number of name changes over the years. Whether you called it Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, or the Windows Smartphone, it all relied on the backend Windows CE operating system. Windows CE has been around since the mid-1990s, but its popularity never really took off until Win CE version 3.0 was announced and promptly rebranded Pocket PC 2000. Windows CE phones had a decent following with techies and Windows-focused businesses back in the day. In fact, had the iPhone not come around, we might today be discussing the battle between Google and Microsoft for smartphone OS domination.
To many, Symbian/Win CE devices were for tech geeks -- and the BlackBerry was for business. The BlackBerry OS and accompanying hardware was tailor-made for business users on the go who primarily required mobile email and occasional Web browsing. From an enterprise IT perspective, the BlackBerry OS was likely the first time that a smartphone operating system penetrated the corporate walls and became mainstream. This was primarily due to the company offering a relatively easy way to tap into corporate email systems using the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES).
Love it or hate it, the iPhone singlehandedly changed how consumers and enterprise IT viewed the smartphone. What once was considered a geeky toy or a portable email/phone combination for business professionals suddenly became a true replacement for our PC when we were on the go. Apple figured out how smartphones could be refined and made incredibly easy to use. Additionally, Apple did a tremendous job creating a software developer channel through its App Store to offer just about any kind of application one could imagine. No longer was a smartphone considered a lesser form of PC that one could use while on the road in a pinch. Instead, the iPhone and iOS had the capability to completely stand on their own, and do much of the same type of work that a traditional PC could do.
The most recent high-profile company to take a shot at smartphone OS fame was none other than the Mozilla organization and its Firefox OS. The Firefox OS is yet another mobile OS that is Linux-based. The primary difference, however, is that the applications that run on the Firefox OS are HTML 5, as opposed to natively written code for each specific OS. The thought was that developers would be sick and tired of coding different apps for Android, iOS, Windows Phone, etc., and instead demand a universally understood platform for which they could simply write once and distribute to everyone. While the concept is good, it seems that HTML 5 simply isn't up to the task and apps on the Firefox OS are known to lag and suffer from various UI problems. The direction that the Firefox OS was taking was a good one, but perhaps a bit ahead of its time.
In many ways, we have reached a plateau stage in smartphone OS history. From the early 1990s until Apple's iPhone release in 2007, smartphone operating systems grew by leaps and bounds. But over the last few years, not a great deal has changed. Is hardware holding back the next great breakthroughs in smartphone OS innovation? Or do we need to rethink the smartphone OS altogether? Either way, we seem to be in a holding pattern until creativity propels us to the next level. What might that next level look like? Tell us about it in the comments section below.
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